The claim was made in a CNBC article about their recent interview with Charles Chao, CEO of the Chinese social media company Sina.

Facebook might be able to learn a thing or two about fighting “fake news” from Chinese social media giant Sina.

The company’s CEO, Charles Chao, spoke with CNBC this week about his battle against the spread of inaccurate information, and sought to dash allegations that his platform is really acting to stifle political dissent.

In the interivew, Chao said that Chines companies have been tackling “fake news” and “fake information” long before the topic became a meme in the west.

“Whatever you heard recently, like what Facebook started to do, and all these social problems, [people became aware] that they need to vet information: All these, we have been doing this for many years actually,” Chao said.

Chao explained that his site began marking posts deemed to be “fake news, fake information” at least five years ago.

Towards the end of the piece, CNBC acknowledges that the rules established by Chinese social media to contain “fake news” could stifle political dissent.

“I mean, it’s not a government legal system, but it’s really a system we built, a platform to deal with the issues,” he said.

But many charge that there’s political intent behind these non-governmental systems, with activists claiming that this is a methodology for stifling dissent.

It’s well established that China engages in internet censorship, and most outside analysts point to social media as one of the prime battlegrounds for that fight.